On Legal Issues of the Aggrieved Partys Right of Direct Claim Against Insurer for Oil Pollution Damage Arising Out of Ship Collision
This essay was initiated by a case weve involved in. A bulk carrier with convenient flag collided with a fishing boat on the Japan Sea, and then sunk; the bunker leaking from the sunken vessel caused heavy pollution. The local authority in Japan has suffered a huge loss in order to clean the oil pollution. When the local authority claimed compensation for oil pollution damages, it found that the shipping company is a single ship company, owned only one ship which has already sunk, and thus, there has been no property available in the company to recover the local authority as a victim. As the shipping compensation insurance was covered by a insurance company in PRC, the lawyer retained by the Japanese local authority consult us with the matter of whether the Japanese local authority could take action to claim compensation directly against the insurance company on account of the shipping compensation insurance covered by it. According to article 97 of the Special Maritime Procedure Law of the Peoples Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as Maritime Procedure Law) With respect to a claim for indemnity against oil pollution damage caused by a ship, the person suffering for the damage may make the claim to the ship owner causing the oil pollution damage, or directly make the claim to the insurer bearing the liability for oil pollution damage of the ship owner or to other person providing financial guarantee. Where the insurer bears the liability for oil pollution damage of the ship owner or the other person providing financial guarantee against whom an action is filed, he is entitled to require the ship owner causing the oil pollution damage to participate in the proceedings, it seems that the law provide the answer we search for, but, the issue is not as easy as it looks. As a matter of fact, there are no other stipulations either in procedure law or substantive law in PRC than Article 97 to provide specific procedures or measures to enforce the Right of Direct Claim stipulated in Article 97, thus, lawyers or judges found that they faced with a dilemma in how to execute such right to protect the injured party of oil pollution damage. In order to solve the legal problem and protect victims of oil pollution damage in such situation, the authors has analyzed the purpose of the laws and tried to put forward some implementing measures to fill up the blank of laws on this issue.
Oil Pollution Damage Pay to be paid Right of Direct Claim
Meggie Zhao Louis Peng
Liaoning Fada Law Firm, Member of Maritime Committee of All China Lawyer Association Lawyer, Liaoning Fada Law Firm
国际会议
Intl Conference on Marine Pollution Liability & Policy(国际海洋油污会议--海洋污染责任与政策国际研讨会)
大连
英文
640-647
2009-06-04（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）